There Was No Other Way
by sudoku
Summary: Dying is easy, surviving and moving on is hard. Stephen contemplated what he had to do to ensure their eventual win but he was not without a heart. Major Endgame spoilers.


-Unbetaed and non native speaker so please kindly point out any mistakes.  
-Please correct me if I get some details of the movie wrong.  
-Warning: Once again, major spoilers for Endgame

* * *

Finally he came back to the world of Living after being gone for five years. He hoped it was five years unless his visit to the future was wrong. The details were right though. The Spider-Kid, Quill, Mantis, Drax, and the rest were back like he envisioned.

He explained briefly to them that they had been dead for five years. The poor Spider-Kid looked a bit green around the gills at his briefing. Tact was never his strong suit, besides they had no time.

He needed to use telepathy to contact every sorcerer and superhero he knew and opened numerous portals from different locations. He needed to focus. Time was of the essence. Wong and other sorcerers seemed to be surprised to hear from him as they thought he was dead. He really had no time for pleasantries as they needed to help the Avengers now.

He then opened a portal from Titan right to the battleground and it was not a moment too soon. If they were late, Captain America would just be dead and Thanos would have obliterated all of them.

When more cavalry arrived he couldn't help but quipped, well, he hadn't joked for five years so he was allowed. He liked to needle Wong so he asked whether that was everybody. Wong was just being Wong when he answered whether he expected more. Good old Wong.

Despite his joke, his heart was quite heavy. His final plan was about coming to fruition but the final moment really depended on one guy.

He was not surprised when he was fighting the aliens (ugh, aliens, he usually fought demons and supernatural creatures and two years ago, no, seven years ago, he was a neurosurgeon who didn't resort to violence), he heard someone landed heavily behind him. He turned around and there was Stark, no, not Stark, Tony. He had called him Tony before he died.

Of course Tony wanted to know whether this was the winning future. His heart felt much heavier because how could he tell Tony the truth. He just answered that if he told him, it wouldn't happen. He hoped, no, he knew Tony would make the right choice. But he wasn't feeling great about this. He was about to doom a man.

At least there was a distraction in the form of a tidal wave that was about to swallow everyone up. However, his concentration was still on Tony.

When Tony finally looked at his direction, he looked back and with his trembling hands he raised his left index finger to confirm this was the only way to win. He was utterly devastated because he just acted as the executioner for a good man.

When the dust had settled metaphorically and literally, he looked in Tony's direction and his heart broke into a million pieces. He just killed the man who had rescued him from abduction and torture. He couldn't help but tremble. Wong and the Cloak came to support him. Wong asked him whether he wanted to rest. He just realized how tired he was. For people who hadn't been decimated, it had been five years; for him it was only one day. It was an eventful day: Hulk crashed his Sanctum before he was going to the Deli (he hadn't had his sandwich), he was being abducted and tortured, he looked into million of futures, he fought Thanos and lost, came back alive and fought Thanos again.

Wong said there was some food and Hulk-A-Hulk-A-Burning-Fudge plus other Hulk's themed ice creams since apparently Hulk was super popular now (he didn't see details like this when he saw the futures) clinched the deal. Besides, he really couldn't help Tony now. It was too late.

Back at the Sanctum, he only managed to eat a little bit. He was too exhausted and depressed. He joked that he hadn't eaten for five years so he was not used to eating. Wong just shook his head and asked him to rest. He went to his old room which surprisingly hadn't changed much. Wong told him no one used his room out of respect for him. He was afraid of nightmares because what he just did to Tony. Sophie seemed to understand and acted as a blanket. Despite his apprehension, he felt asleep a few minutes later.

For a few days, Wong kept feeding him but he only managed to eat a handful and already felt like throwing up.

"Stephen, since you're a doctor, you should know any better than anybody that you need to eat. You don't eat much and since coming back from the dead, you eat even less."

"I know, but I can't. I just physically can't."

"A little by little is fine as long as you keep doing that."

"Hey, just because you are at least five years older than me now, you can't boss me around."

Wong rolled his eyes. "Not this joke again. You also need to sleep."

He managed to sleep fourteen hours straight on the first night but after that he only slept a few minutes at one time before waking up in cold sweat. He kept quiet.

"It's not your fault."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you feel guilty about Tony Stark's death but don't. It was his choice."

Stephen put his head between his hands. "It's not only Tony, but also Ms. Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow. She sacrificed herself to get the Soul Stone. Not to mention countless people who still died because of the Decimation, not because they were turned to dust but because their driver or pilot or doctor were. How am I going to live with that?" Sophie hugged him tightly around his shoulders.

"Well, it's still Tony's and Black Widow's choice. You didn't make them do it. If you didn't give up the Time Stone, Tony would've died and nobody wouldn't have come back from the Decimation. As for those other people, it was on Thanos, not you."

"But I just saved Tony so that he could die five years later leaving behind a beautiful family. Not to mention Peter Parker's father figure and the role model for countless others."

"I'm sure he was grateful for that happy five years. He's finally got to the family that he had always dreamed of."

"And I took away Tony from that family."

"Stephen, think logically. If you didn't give up the Time Stone, Tony and a lot of other people would've died and Thanos would still get the Time Stone and wiped half of the universe. But there would be no Tony to figure out how to get those people back. Since you gave up the Stone, we finally won despite the cost. But at least most people returned. The needs of many outweigh the needs of the few."

"Did you just quote Star Trek?"

Wong, being the master poker he was, just shifted very slightly but Stephen knew his friend very well by now. "Shut up and listen. Even as a doctor, you know you can't save anyone. Now as the Master of Mystic Arts, you need to uphold this principle more."

Stephen finally looked up from his hands. "Our job description sucks and we don't even get any pay. I was supposed to save lives, not to doom someone to death. Tony looked at me before he grabbed the Gauntlet and I just confirmed it was the right choice and sent him to his death."

"It was ultimately still his choice. He would've still done it anyway even if you didn't confirm it. He wanted to make sure he was winning before he did it and you gave him assurance."

"How am I different from the Ancient One then? Knowing someone's doom and didn't prevent it."

"I think you must've knocked your head too hard during the battle. I don't follow. What has it got to do with the Ancient One?"

"When I saw the winning future, I knew Bruce Banner was going to get the Time Stone from the Ancient One. She knew about me and my profession. That meant my initial rejection to become a student in Kamar Taj was just to a test. She knew about me. She knew I was going to be her successor. She knew I was going to have an accident but she didn't do anything because that was my destiny. I mean I can't blame her for it as it has already happened before I knew that she knew. How was it different from what I did to Tony?"

"Oh, Stephen. I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"That's fine. I can't really blame her because I've learned to become a better man because of my accident. But I also doomed Tony in the same way."

"It's not exactly the same. As I said, Tony would've died in Titan if you didn't intervene. If The Ancient One intervened, you wouldn't have the accident and I wouldn't have a constant pain in my ass right now."

"Hey!"

Wong raised his hand. "I haven't finished. Your life as a surgeon wouldn't be over if she intervened. But I'd be dead and the rest of humanity would've lived in the Dark Dimension. As much as it pains me to admit, you've saved us all."

"You're welcome." His reply was automatic. Apparently even when he was depressed, he could still be a joker.

Wong shook his head. "If you didn't give up the Stone, Tony and a lot of others would've died so you did the right thing. As for sending him to his death, he was going to do it anyway,he just needed a confirmation that we were going to win and you gave him that. So hypothetically speaking, if you didn't give Tony the confirmation and Tony didn't grab the Stones. Thanos would have snapped his fingers and everybody would've died including Tony and his family. At least because of your intervention, his family and friends still live."

"If you put it that way, it kinda makes sense."

Wong sighed. "Stephen, you're super smart and you often like to remind us about that. But sometime you're super dense. I'm sure you can figure out all this logic by yourself if you didn't wallow if your own guilt."

"But I still feel guilty as I still play a part indirectly."

"Welcome to the hero business. The first lesson is you need to make a lot of tough calls. You've made the right one since mostly everybody lives. Before you interrupt me, yes, except for Tony and Ms. Romanoff and those other victims. As much as we'd like to, we can't help everyone. I think you know that. Tony told me that you kept emphasizing that you would sacrifice him and that kid to protect the Stone."

"And I did sacrifice him. Before you yelled at me again, yes, yes, I understand I made the best out of poor choices. I just don't know that surviving sucks."

"That's because you die too often. You're always an over achiever. Dying is easy, surviving and moving on is hard but you've got to do it. That's the second lesson that you need to get through to your thick skull. Are you going to attend the memorial tomorrow?"

"I guess I will. The least I can do is to honour him after what I've done."

"Stephen…"

"I know, I know, it was his choice."

"Yes, it was. And you've to honor his sacrifice by living well."

Stephen nodded. Life was full of irony. The first time he met Tony, he wasn't invited to his wedding. Now, a few days later, well at least for him, he attended his memorial that happened indirectly because of him. But Wong's logic was sound. He needed to learn the live with what he had done. After all, he still had a lot to do and Tony would've wanted him to continue protecting this realm so his sacrifice wouldn't be in vain.

* * *

Notes:

-If you notice Stephen's face as he raised the one finger and at the memorial, he was devastated. It can't be easy for someone who doesn't want to kill. His suit at the memorial also seemed a bit too big so perhaps that was because Benedict needed to lose weight for his new roles but I just incorporated it into the fic.  
-This came out more angsty in my mind but as I typed it became more upbeat. Typical. But I guess we don't need more depression after the movie. I was actually more devastated by Natasha's death as I didn't expect that. She didn't have any family and she died for her newfound fanmily.  
-I still need to process and think which fanfics to update and which to abandon.


End file.
